011. One More Time, One More Chance

After dinner, Umaru volunteered to help with the dishes. Unable to refuse her, Jiang Yu ended up washing a haphazard batch of dishes with her. Afterward, Umaru received Jiang Yu’s verdict: “I’d better do the dishes myself from now on.”

Pouting, Umaru puffed out her cheeks, donned her somewhat comical hamster hood, and sat sulking in a corner of the living room. This was the scene that greeted Jiang Yu as he emerged from the kitchen. Amused, he pondered how to cheer her up. Perhaps a change of subject would do the trick?

He suddenly remembered that, on their way home the other day, Umaru had mentioned wanting to hear him sing again. So Jiang Yu went straight to his room, took out the guitar from his closet, and began tuning it carefully. He hadn’t known much about music in his previous life, but his predecessor had learned quite a bit from childhood—perhaps because his mother had been a music teacher.

Umaru, sulking but secretly keeping an eye on her brother, noticed that he hadn’t come to comfort her. Her cheeks puffed out even more, accentuating her delicate nose and lips and her large, expressive eyes, which only made her look more adorable. Listening to the sounds of Jiang Yu rummaging in his room, and then the faint vibrations of guitar strings, Umaru’s urge to act spoiled gradually turned into irrepressible curiosity.

Still, if she went to him first, wouldn’t that mean admitting defeat? That simply wouldn’t do! Umaru steeled herself.

While Umaru was locked in this inner struggle, Jiang Yu, guitar in hand, opened his bedroom door. Umaru, who had been staring at the door, quickly turned her head away and gave a tiny “hmph!” to show she was still mad.

Jiang Yu almost laughed, but managed to keep a straight face. After taking a breath, he addressed Umaru softly in the corner, “Didn’t you say you wanted to hear me sing the other day? How about I sing you a song now?”

“Ah! Well, I suppose I’ll listen if you insist,” Umaru exclaimed, unable to hide her delight, though she immediately adopted a look of reluctant acceptance as she glanced at Jiang Yu. But those sparkling, beautiful eyes had already betrayed her true feelings.

Jiang Yu couldn’t help but laugh at last. Before Umaru’s expression could shift again, he composed himself, cradled his freshly tuned guitar, and strummed gently.

A few deep notes echoed in the still air, repeating in sets. Then Jiang Yu’s voice, lazy yet tender, began to sing:

“How much more must I lose before I am forgiven?
How much more pain must I endure before I can see you again?
One more time, please, seasons, don’t change,
One more time, those days of laughter and play.
Whenever we quarreled, I was always the first to yield,
Your willfulness only made me love you more...”

His vocal cords strained and intertwined, yet the sound was beautiful, blending with the soft guitar and reverberating in Umaru’s heart.

To Umaru, it felt as though this song was written for her and Jiang Yu.

As children, a timid girl met a shy boy. They would peek at each other from behind their parents. The girl’s lovely flaxen hair draped over her shoulders, her brown eyes full of anxiety in an unfamiliar place. Her small hand clung to her father’s trouser leg in confusion and fear.

Then she learned that the boy before her was her “big brother,” and the boy learned that this pretty girl was his “little sister.”

The introverted boy took on the role of “big brother,” leading his little sister in games, drawing together, building with blocks. Though not always willing, he followed her lead in the pure, innocent make-believe of childhood.

As they grew, their time together only increased. They practiced piano under Jiang Yu’s mother’s guidance and spent their free hours doodling dreams born of childish imagination.

The boy remained shy but learned to save the best for his sister and protect her from the wind and rain. Whenever they got into mischief and drew an adult’s ire, he would shoulder all the blame alone.

The girl stayed sensitive, but no longer found new environments so hard to endure. After all, in her heart, there was a figure who stood tall and steadfast.

They quarreled sometimes, but it was always the boy who apologized, gift in hand, no matter who was at fault.

Their bond continued until Jiang Yu’s mother’s sudden passing. Confronted with her brother’s despair, the young Umaru was at a loss.

Later, Jiang Yu became immersed in the world of anime and games. To Umaru, who had no defenses against her brother, his recommendations were gospel, and she soon became a closet otaku herself.

It wasn’t until recently that Umaru truly reconnected with Jiang Yu. His changes didn’t trouble her. Though they still talked often after their first year of middle school, most of their conversations were online, limited to anime, comics, and games.

Besides, who could know what Umaru had sacrificed just to be able to live by Jiang Yu’s side again? Her heart was full of joy, and the little differences in Jiang Yu didn’t matter much. She’d come, originally, to look after her brother, but somehow it had turned into him taking care of her. Yet for Umaru, who’d always taken this for granted, there was little disappointment—just a touch of regret.

Well, except that Jiang Yu was still as dense as ever, still treating her like a child. Apart from that, she had no complaints.

Jiang Yu was still singing, his voice growing stronger and more impassioned:

“I have been searching for your traces,
At every crossroads, in every dream,
Though I know you won’t be there,
If a miracle could happen, I wish to see you again right now.
From the very first morning of a new day,
I would say the words I’ve never spoken: ‘I love you’...”

What was Jiang Yu thinking at that moment?

Was it the falling of cherry blossoms at five centimeters per second? Or the innocent love of childhood? Or perhaps the image of a boy and girl, lips meeting, hearts tightly entwined, standing in a vast, lonely field?

“We have exchanged nearly a thousand messages, yet it feels as if the distance between our hearts has closed by only a single centimeter.”

There is a line like this in the film “5 Centimeters Per Second.”

Perhaps human relationships are not bound by reason. Some people you fall for at first sight and can never let go. Others, no matter how often you talk, will always remain just friends. Even if you force a closer bond, it soon fades away.

Jiang Yu remembered a popular comment on a music platform, which calculated that the average person walks 120,000 kilometers in a lifetime. If you spend 76 years walking, that’s 120,000 kilometers divided by 76 years—about 5.0033 centimeters per second.

“At what speed must I live to be able to see you again?”

That was the protagonist’s question in the film, and the singer’s desperate cry in the song. Perhaps that is the answer.

“I have always been searching for your smile,
Glancing down the tracks while waiting for the train,
Knowing full well you will not be there,
If there is a next life, I will come to your side no matter what.
There is nothing else I wish to pursue,
Because nothing is more important than you...”

As the guitar’s sound faded, Jiang Yu’s once soaring voice softened. With the last chords, he opened his eyes—when had he closed them?—and exhaled a long, deep breath.

At the very end, Jiang Yu altered the original high-spirited delivery, singing the last lines almost as if in a dream. Perhaps, in his heart, the days of yesterday could never be recaptured. This final murmur was his truest blessing for the innocent wish of “if only we could start over.”

This song had always been one of Jiang Yu’s favorites, even in his previous life. Beyond its connection to anime, its gentle melody and melancholic lyrics suited the taste of a would-be poet like him.

Snapping back to reality, Jiang Yu glanced towards the corner—and was surprised to see two silent tears streaming down his little sister’s cheeks.

He hurried to find tissues, feeling a small swell of pride at his own singing—apparently, he was quite good! Then again, he thought, perhaps most of the credit belonged to the song itself, and he felt a bit deflated.

Umaru, emerging from the song’s spell, paused for a moment at the tissue in front of her. Sensing the dampness on her cheeks, she blushed, took the tissue, and turned aside to wipe her delicate face carefully.

Once she’d composed herself, Umaru turned back to Jiang Yu, feigning indignation. “It’s all your fault, singing such a sad song and making me cry...”

What more could Jiang Yu say? He could only apologize with a sheepish smile.

After finally soothing Umaru, whose eyes were still a little red, she said, “So as punishment, whenever I want to hear you sing from now on, you’re not allowed to refuse, okay?”

“Of course, I won’t,” Jiang Yu promised solemnly, as if he were swearing an oath.

Umaru couldn’t help but burst into silvery laughter, then asked a flurry of questions—what was the song called, was it one of Jiang Yu’s own compositions, and so on.

Jiang Yu’s gaze grew a little evasive, a trace of guilt in his heart, but he replied in that same languid tone, “The song is called ‘One More Time, One More Chance.’ It means something like ‘one more try, one more opportunity’… You could say, more or less, it’s my own original work.”

With Umaru gazing at him in admiration, whatever guilt Jiang Yu felt soon vanished.

Honestly, our protagonist is getting better and better at forgiving himself, isn’t he? And really, he’s clearly got a little sister complex!